2.1 – The Yes Men

The Doctor, Jamie, Polly and Ben arrive on New Houston, an Earth colony in the Fourth Sector, which the Doctor previously saved from an alien invasion. He wishes to pay his respects to his late friend Meg Carvossa, but something is not quite right with New Houston’s subservient robots…

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Styre
on May 10, 2016 at 1:32 AM

THE EARLY ADVENTURES: THE YES MEN

With the progression into fall 2015 came the second series of Early Adventures from Big Finish, and the first of these is “The Yes Men” from Simon Guerrier. Much like the first series focused on the First Doctor, this series focuses on the Second, and this first entry is a solid, entertaining story that doesn’t outstay its welcome.

Recasting is becoming a habit at Big Finish, and “The Yes Men” features the debut of Elliot Chapman as companion Ben Jackson, replacing the late Michael Craze. Chapman’s task is easier than that facing Tim Treloar as the Third Doctor: only 13 episodes featuring Ben are known to exist, and while Craze was a fixture at Doctor Who conventions, he passed away in 1998, long before fans could easily record appearances. So there’s simply not much left of Craze’s performances – or, indeed, his voice – which is probably why Chapman’s impression sounds entirely convincing to my untrained ear. But Ben is missing entirely from the third episode – the reason why is explained in the extras, but it still jars.

Despite the inclusion of some effective narration, “The Yes Men” is a full-cast story with full participation from the Second Doctor. That means that Frazer Hines plays both Jamie and the Doctor, often performing against his own Patrick Troughton impression. While I’ve lauded Hines’ impression in the Companion Chronicles, its weaknesses really show through in this format: he’s excellent at capturing Troughton’s quieter, understated moments, but he’s not good at all at capturing Troughton’s excitement or authority. This means that the performance is often unconvincing, and an unconvincing Doctor makes the story difficult to take at times.

But what about the story, you ask? It’s good, if unspectacular. Set on Earth colony New Houston, there are two competing plots: the Doctor and Polly investigating the death of his old friend Meg Carvossa, and Ben and Jamie investigating the strange behavior of the colony’s robot servants. As with many of these “old friend” stories, the Doctor’s old friend is not the same person he remembers – and the plot twists in this regard are entirely predictable. Better is the robot subplot: there’s a beautifully haunting image of the robots creating a simulacrum of human society, imitating the interaction of social classes and putting the pointlessness of it all into sharp relief. And using Jamie as their model for leading a rebellion is probably the best idea in the script: hearing the robots dispassionately repeating “Creag an tuire!” adds to the unusual feeling.

I like the format into which the Early Adventures appear to have settled. Anneke Wills provides interstitial narration, which eliminates the need for tedious scenes of characters traveling and also reduces the amount of tortuous “Look, Doctor! It’s about thirty meters across!” descriptive dialogue. Guerrier has a ton of experience with narrative storytelling from the Companion Chronicles and the device is put to good use here. Unfortunately, what “The Yes Men” has in storytelling it lacks in depth: apart from a little bit of time with Meg Carvossa, the script doesn’t go into great detail about any of the characters. The story sounds and feels as though it stepped right out of its era, but unlike Guerrier’s best work, it doesn’t have much staying power beyond that. Lisa Bowerman is excellent as ever in the director’s chair, and the sound design from Toby Hrycek-Robinson is minimal but effective. Overall, “The Yes Men” is another example of a solid Doctor Who story. It’s well produced, well acted, and it will entertain you for two hours, but if you’re looking for something unique, this is not it.